The Privatization/Censorship/Indoctrination Agenda Is in Full Bloom

Most Americans believe that all children deserve a well-rounded education. Trump & MAGA argue that "Liberals" are damaging public education with a "radical woke agenda" of identity politics. Guess only extremist right wing "free speech" matters?!

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— Freedom Writers Collaborative (@fwcollaborative.bsky.social) July 15, 2025 at 1:25 PM

School Voucher Programs and White Nationalism

A great piece in Mother Jones about public education dollars being drained away to indoctrinate children in white nationalist "religious" schools.

Earlier this month, former President Donald Trump held his first campaign rally as a convicted felon at Dream City Church in Phoenix, Arizona, hosted by the arch-conservative student group Turning Point USA. This wasn’t Trump’s first appearance at Dream City Church; he also held a rally there with Turning Point USA in 2020. For events like this, it’s an ideal venue: A weekly attendance of around 21,000 believers makes this one of the largest churches not just in Arizona but in the nation.

Dream City, which didn’t respond to my questions for this story, is a mecca for special guests who blur the line between religion and politics. Its annual conference has featured notables like musician and pastor Sean Feucht, who participated in a White House prayer session for President Trump in 2019 and is currently leading a tour of prayer rallies at state capitol buildings across the country. The lineup for this year’s event also included David Barton, whose organization, WallBuilders, teaches K-12 students about the supposed Christian origins of America; Jurgen Mathesius, a pastor at San Diego’s far-right Awaken Church, which has become a stop on Mike Flynn’s ReAwaken America tour; and Jentezen Franklin, a televangelist who also spoke at the 2022 Pray Vote Stand Summit, which mobilizes conservative Christian voters to engage in political activism.

In addition to its thrumming weekly worship sessions and its blockbuster events, the church has another project: Dream City Christian Academy. The K-12 private school, which serves nearly 800 students, is part of Turning Point USA’s Turning Point Academy program, a network of 41 schools that describes itself as “an educational movement that exists to glorify God and preserve the founding principles of the United States through influencing and inspiring the formation of the next generation.” Dream City Christian Academy promises to “Protect our campus from the infiltration of unethical agendas by rejecting all ‘woke’ and untruthful ideologies being pushed on students.”

This politically charged approach to education likely isn’t for everyone—and because it’s a private school, it doesn’t have to be. Except for one thing: Dream City Christian Academy is one of a growing number of religious schools that are supported by public funds. . . .

Read on.

Big Win Over KIPP in California Privatization Fight

Big, big victory in Los Angeles over proposed KIPP mega-charter:

By Jared Hamil |

April 8, 2019

 

Centro CSO press conference announcing defeat of KIPP charter school, victory for public education (Fight Back! News/staff) 

 

Los Angeles, CA - Centro CSO (Community Service Organization) along with teachers, parents and students from several East Area schools announced a historic victory, April 4. After months of struggle, corporate KIPP Promesa Charter school will not be building a new mega-charter school in Boyle Heights, at the location of the former Lincoln Hospital near 4th and Soto Street.

Rosario Bonilla, a mother who lives next to proposed site said, “I’m excited we obtained the victory against KIPP that I know would have affected the lives of my children and my community. Also, I feel proud to say that billionaires can't teach our kids!”

KIPP, which is the United States’ largest charter school corporation, operates in multiple states. In Los Angeles, like many other cities, charter schools are promoted in poor working-class neighborhoods that are primarily Chicano and African American. With the backing of real estate billionaires like Eli Broad, they build new private charter schools that pull students from already existing public schools. As student enrollment from public schools declines, funding also declines, causing layoffs for teachers and support staff. Those jobs are almost always unionized, with good benefits. Charter schools are also a part of the wave of gentrification responsible for rent hikes, evictions and displacements. With a population of over 100,000 who reside in Boyle Heights, there are currently over a dozen charter schools. KIPP Charter Schools already have one school in Boyle Heights and three in East LA.

When word spread that KIPP was trying open up another school the community sprang into action. On January 4, Centro CSO supported a lawsuit filed by Boyle Heights Neighborhood Association and longtime activist and resident Carlos Montes. The lawsuit against KIPP Promesa and LA City was based on the environmental damage to the already existing bad conditions and failure to conduct an Environmental Impact Report.

Carlos Montes, of Centro CSO said, “The proposed mega-project would have an adverse impact by adding more pollution, traffic and noise to the already harmful conditions.”
Centro CSO, along with teachers from nearby schools like Breed St. Elementary and the groups like East LA Padres Contra Privatizacion, went to LA city hall and through the planning commission’s long process demanding they not build the new charter school. But the LA city council voted to approve the project, with the urging of Councilmember Jose Huizar.

KIPP also got letters of support from LAUSD Board member Monica Garcia, LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis and Maria Brenes of Inner City Struggle, which the community strongly criticized. Centro CSO led protests several times at the proposed site, demanding an end to privatization of public education.

In late January, Los Angeles teachers, overworked with huge classroom sizes, lack of support services, plagued with charter school co-locations and budget cuts went on a historic week-long strike. Over 30 thousand teachers fought against the attacks on public education, as more and more public funding went to private charter schools. The attacks were led by billionaires like Eli Broad, the Waltons of Wal-Mart and the Gates Foundation with their sellout lackeys on the LA school board like Monica Garcia and former board member and money-launderer Ref Rodriguez. During the strike, the United Teachers of Los Angeles led a protest on the headquarters of the California Charter Schools Association demanding a moratorium on charter schools within the district.

After the strike, teachers and parents in Boyle Heights continued the fight against privatization. They continued with protests, and on February 28 they went to KIPP Promesa offices demanding, “No new mega-KIPP!”

On the afternoon of April 4, at Mariachi Plaza, mothers, students and teachers of Boyle Heights and East LA announced the huge victory. Lupe Torres, an ELA resident, teacher and UTLA Chapter Chair at Marvin Avenue Elementary school, fired up the crowd, chanting “No mega KIPP!” CSO announced that the LA City Planning Department issued a termination letter on the proposed project.

Eloisa Galindo of Eastside Padres Contra Privatizacion said, “The people united will never be defeated! The power and money will never defeat people united!”

Carlos Cerdan, a teacher from nearby Breed Street Elementary said, “This win was a huge victory for the community. Centro CSO’s commitment to Boyle Heights is clear yet again, defeating a corporate charter behemoth. The fight doesn’t end here. We need to continue to inform and mobilize the community because privatizers are not going away easily. Charter schools serve to divide communities at an early age in order to destroy unity through false pretenses of choices. Schools not profits!”

This historic victory shows that the wave of charter schools can be stopped if communities stand up and fight back. Teachers, parents and community members will continue to struggle against co-locations and the invasion of private charter schools on the Eastside. Community leader Carlos Montes states, “This victory against KIPP will inspire others to fight back against privatization.”

AFT Leads Privatization Efforts

When charter schools first appeared on the educational horizon, Albert Shanker supported the idea.  By the early 1990s, Shanker had awakened to the fact that charter schools were going to be the primary tool in the corporate tool box for privatizing public education and crushing the teaching profession and unions.  See this post for excerpts of Shanker's writing on the subject of charters. 

Under Randi Weingarten, the AFT has re-written history to leave out Shanker's opposition to charter schools.  This is from AFT's website in 2016, which needs updating--there are now 7,000 charters, rather than the 4,000 claimed on their website. 

AFT and Charter Schools
The American Federation of Teachers strongly supports charter schools that embody the core values of public education and a democratic society: equal access for all students; high academic standards; accountability to parents and the public; a curriculum that promotes good citizenship; a commitment to helping all public schools improve; and a commitment to the employees’ right to freely choose union representation.

Charter schools are publicly funded schools that are granted autonomy from some state and local regulations in exchange for meeting the terms of each school’s charter. State laws, which vary widely, govern who can authorize charters, who can apply for them, and the total number allowed. Today, there are more than 4,000 charter schools across 40 states and the District of Columbia, enrolling more than 1 million children.

Charter Schools Can Empower Teachers

In a landmark address in 1988, former AFT President Albert Shanker became one of the first education leaders to champion the concept of charter schools. Shanker envisioned teacher-led laboratories of reform that would experiment with new instructional practices. These practices would then be subjected to rigorous evaluation and, if successful, serve as models for other public schools.

Shanker also saw charter schools as a way to empower teachers, free them from overly bureaucratic regulations, and strengthen their voice in school and curriculum decision-making. In his view, unions were essential to charter schools, because unions help create the kind of secure work environment that encourages innovation and risk-taking.

The AFT and Charter Schools Today

The AFT believes strongly in Shanker’s vision and the vital connection between charter schools and unions. In fact, the AFT represents charter school teachers and support staff across the country.  In just this past year, nearly a thousand employees at more than a dozen charter schools voted for union representation.  . . .

To Answer Dr. Miller's Question

Yesterday as I was listening and on hold during the second hour of The War Report, James Miller asked the rhetorical question that many have asked over the past 15 years regarding the blindness of educators to the realities of the school privatization agenda.  One school administrator in Buffalo, I think, had Dr. Miller particularly puzzled.

This young man was able to identify a number of the corporate reforms going around around him such as charters, corporate curriculum, and corporate professional development, but he could not seem to wrap his head around the prospect that public school privatization is a well-funded and deliberate strategy being carried out by hostile ideologues, business interests, and corporate welfare experts of the charter school industry.

I did not get a chance to respond to Dr. Miller's question on air, so here is my take, just in case he or his listeners are interested.

Part of the reason has to do with a studied silence on the privatization of schools by the teachers' unions, which are now steered by corporate interests.  New York in an AFT state, and when AFT misleaders don't acknowledge the threat of privatization and, in fact, engage in acts of privatization themselves, how are its affiliates and rank and file members to realize the depth of the problem.  

If you go to the AFT website, Dr. Miller, I hope you will enter "privatization" in the search box.  You will find that it is not even part of the AFT vocabulary.  Nothing, nada.  

Recently, Randi Weingarten and Lily Eskelsen signed  a letter to Pearson urging a reconsideration of Pearson's efforts to privatise education on the African continent.  Have Weingarten or Eskelsen ever demanded that Pearson stop its efforts to privatize education in the U. S.?  

The answer, of course, is no, because the unions' U. S. presidential picks over the past 25 years depend upon Pearson and McGraw-Hill, Gates, and Broad to fund their campaigns.  When privatization in not part of the national union discussion or even part of its vocabulary, educating members about the threat takes on monumental proportions.

Last week for the first time, Lily Eskelsen acknowledged that state and local affiliate members had raised the red flag on the threat posed by charter schools.  What kind of union leadership would depend upon members to warn the national union about the threat posed to the profession by privatization?  

There are 7,000 charter schools in the U. S. today and more promised, thanks to the vast federal grants linked to ESSA.  That's the same ESSA that the union affiliate, NPE, energetically supported, and that the teacher union misleadership is so excited about now that it has arrived.

Anyone sending money to NEA or AFT under this rigged and morally-corrupt system is doing nothing more than paying for his own professional funeral in advance.

Hillary Wants to Experiment with the Lives of Poor Children

Sequester "poor" children in boarding schools?...Again?

by Daun Kauffman @ Lucid Witness 

Native American students at the boarding school Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pa. in 1884.

Hillary Clinton spoke briefly, about a week ago, on a wide range of educational topics with Newsday editors on Long Island. The detailed, public video and transcript are posted HERE.

(The “Education” portion of the Newsday video runs from minute 40:40 to minute 51:15).

Clinton claimed to support “National Standards” in education and a “Common Core”. She supports “Public Charter Schools” and a litany of “good” things: “Good” teachers, ”Good” schools, “Good” Charters, “Good” choice, “Good” testing, “Good” explanation (to parents) of “standardized testing”.  Never once did she define “good”, although she used the terms “good” or “great” at least ten times during the eleven minute segment on education.

She did not speak to the structural inequity (nor the instability) of “National Standards” or a “Common Core” with no “National”, or “Common”, funding.

The most shocking aspect of her views on public education was her thought about improving education for “poor kids”, whom she had earlier acknowledged are now a majority in public schools.  The “poor” majority of children are described HERE as about 70% Hispanic, Black, Asian, Native American and Multiethnic.   Clinton describes “poor” children as coming to school with “all kinds of issues and problems”, her deficit view.  Then she cites the “need” to “experiment” on “poor” kids.
Clinton’s experiment will be “boarding schools”:  Segregate “poor” children in boarding schools, “if we can do it right”.

Click here to read the entire article.

Riding the 'Turnaround' Merry-Go-Round in the Continuing Assault on Philadelphia Public Schools - Part III

by Ken Derstine @ Defend Public Education!
April 14, 2016

On April 7, 2016, at a Hillary Clinton campaign rally in Philadelphia, Bill Clinton got into an argument with demonstrators from Black Lives Matter over his legacy. He later said he “almost want[s] to apologize” for his remarks in defending his “welfare reform” and Violent Crime Control and Enforcement Act of 1994. It is these policies that led to a drastic increase in homelessness and explosion of the prison population in the U.S. in the 1990’s and after.

No matter how contrite Bill Clinton may be for the purposes of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, however, nothing he said at the rally was true. The fundamental premise of Bill Clinton’s neoliberal policies was that the working class needed “welfare reform” even as the industrial base of the U.S. economy was eroding because of globalization. This right-wing position was based on free market myth that the workers as individuals are responsible for their deteriorating conditions. At the same time, his deregulation of the corporate and financial sectors led to historically unprecedented accumulation of wealth by the top 1% of the American population and the near collapse of the U.S. economy in 2008. This was only averted by the $700 billion bailout of banks and various financial institutions with taxpayer money. No such relief has ever been contemplated for the workers and the unemployed.

The neoliberal agenda for privatization that became corporate education reform began as part of Clinton’s neoliberal reforms. The Clintons’ relationships with billionaires Eli Broad, the Walton Foundation (Walmart) and the Gates Foundation were to play a fundamental role in its development. The 'no excuses' philosophy would become a fundamental premise of charter schools in the subsequent administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

The 'No Excuses' Education Philosophy 

The 'no excuses' philosophy of school management was first implemented in 1994 in the original KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) schools in Houston. Created by Mike Feinberg and David Levin (who is also a co-founder of Relay Graduate School of Education), the philosophy basically says that students from low-income families should be taught to overcome the problems brought on by poverty through a rigid pedagogy that accepts no excuses for failure. Any consideration of social factors in student achievement is considered “low expectations”.

  

In his recently released book, Work Hard, Be Hard: Journeys through “No Excuses” Teaching, Jim Horn, Professor of Educational Leadership at Cambridge College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says of the 'no excuses' model:

The “no excuses” school model that KIPP charter schools popularized owes significantly to an assumption made two decades ago by paternalistic school reformers (Finn, 1997), who argued that schools and teachers could “reduce inequality in educational achievement if disadvantaged students were held to the same high standards as everybody else” (Cohen, 1996, p. 101).  This belief remains widespread today, and it has contributed to at least four bad outcomes for children, teachers, and public schools:  1) it leads us away from altering the corrosive socioeconomic realities that affect children’s lives outside school, while pushing our attention toward fixing children and their teachers’ belief systems, 2) it requires educators and children to subscribe to an ideology that demands toxic levels of anxiety and stress to attain some modicum of success, even temporarily, 3) it has led to widespread failure to live up to expectations that prove more fanciful than real, which creates self-loathing or self-blame for failing to achieve what students and teachers, alike, are told is achievable, 4) it has contributed to a totalizing compliance regimen for students and teachers that is more penal than pedagogical.

The heart of Horn’s book comes from twenty-five interviews with former KIPP teachers about their experience at KIPP. He summarizes what these teachers say in the interviews in his book (page 141, 142):

  

Click here to read the entire article.

Also see:

Riding the ‘turnaround’ merry-go-round in the continuing assault on Philadelphia public schools ­– Part I
The Battle for Wister; The SRC’s Projected Five-year Plan

Riding the ‘turnaround’ merry-go-round in the continuing assault on Philadelphia public schools ­– Part II
Mastery Charter Schools; The Unequal Funding of Public vs. Charter Schools

Privatization: Remembering the Real Purpose of NCLB

Although the education scholars who had looked closely knew it, and hacks like Sandy Kress and Margaret Spelling who designed it knew it, the general public did not, and most still do not know.  EVen after the article below appeared in Time Magazine in 2008, many folks still view NCLB as a well-intentioned but failed effort. 

We know, of course, that NCLB was never designed to achieve its ostensible goal to close the achievement gaps.  But it did succeed mightily in achieving its unacknowledged goal of privatizing great swaths of the public education landscape.  At a time when corporate apologists are trying to paper over the privatization extravaganza that NCLB initiated, it is worthwhile to recall this piece.

And so, "No Child Left Behind: Doomed to Fail?" by Claudia Willis:

There was always something slightly insane about No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the ambitious education law often described as the Bush Administration's signature domestic achievement. For one thing, in the view of many educators, the law's 2014 goal — which calls for all public school students in grades 4 through 8 to be achieving on grade level in reading and math — is something no educational system anywhere on earth has ever accomplished. Even more unrealistic: every kid (except for 3% with serious handicaps or other issues) is supposed to be achieving on grade level every year, climbing in lockstep up an ever more challenging ladder. This flies in the face of all sorts of research showing that children start off in different places academically and grow at different rates.
Add to the mix the fact that much of the promised funding failed to materialize and many early critics insisted that No Child Left Behind was nothing more than a cynical plan to destroy American faith in public education and open the way to vouchers and school choice.

Now a former official in Bush's Education department is giving at least some support to that notion. Susan Neuman, a professor of education at the University Michigan who served as Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education during George W. Bush's first term, was and still is a fervent believer in the goals of NCLB. And she says the President and then Secretary of Education Rod Paige were too. But there were others in the department, according to Neuman, who saw NCLB as a Trojan horse for the choice agenda — a way to expose the failure of public education and "blow it up a bit," she says. "There were a number of people pushing hard for market forces and privatization."

Tensions between NCLB believers and the blow-up-the-schools group were one reason the Bush Department of Education felt like "a pressure cooker," says Neuman, who left the Administration in early 2003. Another reason was political pressure to take the hardest possible line on school accountability in order to avoid looking lax — like the Clinton Administration. Thus, when Neuman and others argued that many schools would fail to reach the NCLB goals and needed more flexibility while making improvements, they were ignored. "We had this no-waiver policy," says Neuman. "The feeling was that the prior administration had given waivers willy-nilly."

It was only in Bush's second term that the hard line began to succumb to reality. Margaret Spellings, who replaced Paige as Secretary of Education in 2005, gradually opened the door to a more flexible and realistic approach to school accountability. Instead of demanding lockstep, grade-level achievement, schools in some states could meet the NCLB goals by demonstrating adequate student growth. (In this "growth model" approach, a student who was three years behind in reading and ended the year only one year behind would not be viewed as a failure.) "Going to the growth models is the right way to go," says Neuman. "I wish it had come earlier. It didn't because we were trying to be tough."

Neuman also regrets the Administration's use of humiliation and shame as a lever for school reform. Failure to meet NCLB's inflexible goals meant schools would be publicly labeled as failures. Neuman now sees this as a mistake: "Vilifying teachers and saying we are going to shame them was not the right approach."

The combination of inflexibility and public humiliation for those not meeting federal goals ignited so much frustration among educators that NCLB now appears to be an irreparably damaged brand. "The problems lingered long enough and there's so much anger that it may not be fixable," says Neuman. While the American Federation of Teachers was once on board with the NCLB goals, she notes, the union has turned against it. "Teachers hate NCLB because they feel like they've been picked on."
Is there a way out of the mess? Neuman still supports school accountability and the much-maligned annual tests mandated by the law. But she now believes that the nation has to look beyond the schoolroom, if it wishes to leave no child behind.

Along with 59 other top educators, policymakers and health officials--including three former surgeon generals, she's put her name to a nonpartisan document to be released on Tuesday by the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. Titled "A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education," it lays out an expansive vision for leveling the playing field for low-income kids, one that looks toward new policies on child health and support for parents and communities. The document states that much of the achievement gap between rich and poor "is rooted in what occurs outside of formal schooling," and therefore calls on policymakers to "rethink their assumptions" about what it will take to close that gap. Neuman says that money she's seen wasted on current programs, including much of the massive Title 1 spending should be reallocated according to this broader approach. "Pinning all our hopes on schools will never change the odds for kids."

Chris Hedges on Education Privatization

Here is a small clip:

The demonizing of teachers is another public relations feint, a way for corporations to deflect attention from the theft of some $17 billion in wages, savings and earnings among American workers and a landscape where one in six workers is without employment. The speculators on Wall Street looted the U.S. Treasury. They stymied any kind of regulation. They have avoided criminal charges. They are stripping basic social services. And now they are demanding to run our schools and universities.

Western Governors University's Path to Becoming a Teacher in NJ

The Christmas gift that keeps on giving. Teaching jobs abound in New Jersey.

Western Governors University is recruiting heavily for part time adjuncts in New Jersey to stay in their pajamas and conduct on line courses for NCATE approved "evaluations." If you are looking for a job as a data evaluator, with no benefits, no job security and no office, then this is for you.

Now that they are dismantling teacher unions and public schools, it's a free for all. Just sign up, pay some money, take some on line courses and you are sure to be an 
"effective" teacher. Just follow the script. You'll do fine.

With experienced educators being fired or fleeing to save their souls, the demand is huge for anyone interested in working in public schools that have been taken over by corporations, i.e., Common Core via PARCC, Pearson and Achieve 3000.

No need to study the history or philosophy of education, curriculum methodology, psychology or subject content, it's as easy as clicking a few buttons.

NCATE Accreditation

WGU is the first exclusively online university to receive NCATE accreditation for its degree programs that lead to teacher licensure, a testament to the fact that WGU graduates "have the knowledge and skills to be effective in helping all students learn."

Read more about our NCATE accreditation

Change Lives with an OnlineTeaching Degree Program

WGU offers challenging online teaching degree programs for both current and aspiring teachers. Because WGU is a nonprofit, online university founded and supported by the governors of 19 U.S. states, you'll benefit from both superior online degree programs and lower tuition.

WGU’s programs are designed to produce highly competent teachers because our degrees are aligned specifically with state standards throughout the country.

Is a New Day Dawning for Education?

Common Dreams and Valerie Strauss at The Washington Post blog are  covering today's protests.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound?

In: Physics, Philosophy and Philosophers, Brain Teasers and Logic Puzzles

Answer:

Most basic answer:
No, because the definition of sound is "something that you hear." No one's there to hear the tree fall, so the tree doesn't make a sound. This answer is valid as long as no details are observed technically.

Published on Monday, December 9, 2013 by Common Dreams

Movement Rises to Kick 'Corporate Reform' Out of Public Schools

#ReclaimPublicEd: With actions in over 60 cities, parents, students, and teachers demand an end to "corporate reform" policies

- Sarah Lazare, staff writer

"There is now widespread common understanding that top-down reforms are products of a market-based philosophy – emphasizing competition rather then collaboration, and winners and losers – in which those who are most vulnerable will become collateral damage.

And the prevailing narrative is that Americans of all persuasions increasingly have diminishing control over their education destinies. 

                                         - Jeffrey Bryant - Education Opportunity Network

Students, teachers, and community groups are launching coordinated marches, town hall meetings, and teach-ins Monday in over 60 cities across the United States, demanding an end to the austerity, standardized testing, privatization, and union-busting they say is gutting public schools nationwide.

Billed as the largest yet national day of action to reclaim the promise of public education, and organized by community and union partners in cities across the country, the series of events aim to introduce a counter-narrative and political pushback to the corporate-backed "education reform" platform has dominated policy throughout the presidential terms of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

The coalition says Monday's show of unity is only the first in what it promises is a growing movement that opposes the nationally coordinated and top-down policies epitomized in high stakes, standardized testing programs like Common Core, as well as mass public school closures, privatization, and education worker lay-offs in Chicago, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. Such policies negatively impact all students, according to critics, but are particluarly devastating to poor students and communities of color.

In October, over 100 community organizations and unions joined forces around five key principles (pdf) demanding the preservation and resourcing of public education. The document opens with the pronouncement:

We are parents and caregivers, students and community members. We are educators and school staff. We have come together around a common commitment to public education. We believe that the only way to give every child the opportunity to pursue a rich and productive life, both individually and as a member of society, is through a system of publicly funded, equitable and democratically controlled public schools.

And the five guiding principles which make up the movement's core public call for improved public schools:

• Equitable funding across all public schools and school systems
• An end to high stakes testing used for the purpose of student, teacher, and school evaluation
• Teacher, family, and community leadership in forming public education policies
• Curriculum responsive to and inclusive of local school communities
• Professional, qualified, and committed teachers in all public schools

"I think we have to change the narrative and mindset that parents and community members are consumers of public education, when in fact we are the owners," said Daniel del Pielago, an education organizer for Empower DC in Washington, D.C. "Our voices need to be heard at all levels, and I think the Day of Action is the springboard for us to begin working together in a more deliberate way and to say to those who would divide us that this is a new day and that we're going to take back and improve our schools."

In Broward County, Florida teachers handed out books to youth in a creative direct action calling for community investment in public education.

In Austin Texas, community organizations and teachers' unions held a march and rally from the capitol demanding public schools invest in Texas students.

New Orleans will see a series of teach-ins aimed at mobilizing community members to reflect and take action on the loss of local control of schooling.

Chicago organizers will sing Christmas carols at City Hall about the gutting of the city's public schools that severely penalizes poor people and communities of color.

Employing Twitter, participants in the day of action are using the #ReclaimPublicEd hashtag to provide reports and photographs of protests, most of which were scheduled for after-school hours:

The American Federation of Teachers placed a print, radio and online ad in 30 cities in a lead-up to Monday's day of action, which read: "Public education is under attack and underfunded throughout our country. Now, communities are coming together for our schools and our children to champion great public schools as the heart of our neighborhoods. ... Together, we can make sure our schools are places where all kids can thrive and the voices of those closest to the classroom are heard."

“The Day of Action is important because young people are under attack when it comes to public education,” said Baltimore-based Tre Murphy, an 18 year old high school senior, in an interview with The Root. “We have found that the educational decision-makers do not value the thoughts and opinions of young people. That creates a critical gap when it comes to making decisions about our future.”

According to education expert Jeffrey Bryant, an associate fellow at Campaign for America's Future and editor of the recently launched Education Opportunity Network, the resistance movement represented by this emerging coalition of teachers, parents,  students, and community members

is driven not only by the realization that there is a nationwide effort to disinvest from public schools, but also by the fact that there is a systemic policy to ensure schools that need funding the most are targeted for deeper cuts or lower funding.

There is now widespread common understanding that top-down reforms are products of a market-based philosophy – emphasizing competition rather then collaboration, and winners and losers – in which those who are most vulnerable will become collateral damage.

And the prevailing narrative is that Americans of all persuasions increasingly have diminishing control over their education destinies.

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Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/12/09-4